


it will not be in vain, it will come back to you

by brampersandon



Category: Champions League - Northendgirls, Men's Football RPF
Genre: F/M, Gen, Gijinka
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-16 19:29:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21041546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brampersandon/pseuds/brampersandon
Summary: "Now," Juventus says, low and quiet against his ear, "Tell everyone you're home."





	it will not be in vain, it will come back to you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raumdeuter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raumdeuter/gifts).

> doesn't write a single word for ten months, shows up with some gijinka nonsense
> 
> happy many-years-late yuletide, iweny ♥ ♥ i wanted to write something for your northendgirls prompt back in 2016 when we barely even knew each other! now look where we are!! how wild is that. 
> 
> for anyone not familiar with northendgirls ucl club gijinka: [feast your eyes](https://northendgirls.tumblr.com/tagged/gijinka)! also, bonus gigi and juve [here](https://irenydraws.tumblr.com/post/153069307228/im-a-huge-huge-fan-of-northendgirlss-footy). :3c
> 
> title comes from _sandcastles_ by call security.

"So," they ask, recorders held in one hand, pens poised in the other, "What are your plans for the future?"

Gigi smiles genially, measures his breaths before leaning closer to the microphone and responding: "On Saturday, I'll play a football match."

The whole room laughs. The question passes.

He lingers in the hallway long after the press and Agnelli have left. Giorgio stays with him for a bit — nothing could keep him from squeezing Gigi's arms and giving him that face-splitting grin and telling him over and over that his words were kind but unnecessary — before inviting him out to lunch. 

"Next time," Gigi assures him, and it's only when the door far down the hall's swinging closed behind Giorgio that he realizes they don't have many _next time_s left. 

Just as he's about to jog after him and take him up on the offer, there comes a sigh from behind him.

"You have no idea what comes next."

Gigi ducks his head to laugh at himself before turning to face her, waiting patiently for him on one of the benches. Juventus is never far from him, even when she has to wait out the crowds before they can speak plainly. They weren't always like this — if Gigi sets his mind to it, really thinks about it, he can recall the first few years when she only appeared to him briefly every now and then. Which was perfectly fine for both of them. Normally, it's only the captains who have her over their shoulder at all times. 

The turning point came, simple and obvious as the sunrise after the night he told Alessandro he'd stay. He showed up in the morning to inform the board of his decision but found her first. 

_I promise not to leave you,_ he'd told her, holding her steely gaze, not daring to glance down at the mace held tight in one hand. 

_Good,_ she said, _We have work to do._

It's been like this ever since — Juventus always on the periphery of his vision, watching, waiting. She guards him just as much as he does her. That promise is a golden-spun thread between them, and Gigi's mind flashes worry for the first time all day thinking it could break.

She reads him easily, crosses one knee over the other primly, smooths out her skirt and pats the space next to her. 

"No, I don't," he agrees when he settles. "But I think I was able to deflect it well, don't you?"

"Yes," she says mildly, "You're very funny."

They sit in silence for a stretch of time, measured only by the gentle tap of one of her boot against the tile. Gigi breaks first — he always does, she has about a century of patience on him. "I'll put more thought into it once we're done. Right now," and she knows what he'll say before he says it, looks up through her veil at him and smiles when he does— "My focus is on you."

She reaches over to pat his cheek, gloved hand warm and gentle against his skin. "It always is, Gianluigi."

He circles the whole of the stadium, following her every step, and he can't remember if she led Alessandro like this too. Perhaps it was only for them and he wasn't able to see. More likely, he didn't know how to properly look.

She waits patiently for every hand he reaches out to hold, every tear-streaked face he thanks, every scarf that lands at his feet. At first, Gigi's grateful that she's allowing him to be momentarily selfish. It's not a feeling he can live in forever, but it's one he can take his time with for now.

Halfway through, he realizes— that's not it. Not entirely. They aren't only saying goodbye to him. In their eyes, he's wrapped up in Juventus, and it's a dual goodbye. They'll have to learn to separate the two, but it's not that easy, of course it's not— Gigi knows that better than anyone. He knows their bond is less a knot tied and more a tangle of roots that can't be easily undone. When they cut him out, they'll have a new Juventus to feel out and rework their relationship with.

This is just as much for her as it is for him.

When Gigi takes a moment to really look at her, there's no mace to be found, her veil lifted, hair loose. She is as undone as he is, as tired, as ready to rest.

When he finishes the full circle and ducks into the tunnel, she reaches back, takes his hand without looking. That was their time for everyone else. Now, a moment only for them.

He's afraid of what might happen if he bows out of football entirely at this juncture, loses his routines and slips into the early, liminal stages of retirement. He worries that he's not quite ready for that, but that the same might happen if he takes a job with the club right away — with very little to delineate his time as a player from his time as a director, he could stagnate, his mind could go dark. Self-preservation has been a skill hard learned as he's aged. He still barely approaches responsible on his best days, but Gigi likes to think he's smarter now than he was at twenty-eight, at seventeen.

In the end, he thinks only a change will save him, so he takes the biggest change offered.

"Paris."

"Paris," Gigi echoes. Twilight casts a dim glow over her, waiting for him at the edge of the penalty box. How many times has he snuck in after hours or during the off season to see her? More than is probably healthy, Gigi reasons, but Juventus has always encouraged more than a little rule-bending.

He drops down onto the ground next to her, long legs stretched out next to hers tucked neatly under her skirt as he rests back against his palms. "Tell me about her."

"She's young," Juventus says, then throws him a sly sideways look. "She's hardly older than you."

His laughter rings out loud in the empty stadium. "Who should be more offended, me or her?"

Her bolero has been left behind, one bare shoulder shrugging in the warm night air.

"It's not that she doesn't care for her players. In her own way, she does. She simply hasn't been through enough to need to..." Juventus tips her head to the left, considers it for a moment before leaving that thought to hang itself. "It will be different."

"Of course it will," Gigi says easily. "It was different when I left Parma for you."

She shakes her head, a strand of hair slipping from its pins. Gigi reaches over to tuck it behind her ear without thinking. "Different will be good for me," he tries instead. "I can't get too comfortable."

"There are other ways to discomfit yourself," she points out, but her tone softens the words. She's not angry with him for this decision. She's simply trying to make him understand.

And he does, in a way — she doesn't want him to leave. If Juventus has one fault, she has many, though Gigi loves her too much to care— but if she does, her fierce attachment to her players is chief among them. She'll do anything she can to keep them, even when it isn't in their best interest, even when the board vehemently disagrees. She has a way— right up until she doesn't.

He wonders, briefly, what conversations Claudio has been having with her this summer. If that's why her eyes are sadder than he can remember in years.

Gigi sits up straight and angles his body closer to hers. One arm curls around her waist so he can press up against her side, stalwart despite the uncertainty of both their futures. "I'll be back," he says, voice low, his other hand slowly closing over hers balancing the mace in her lap. "You're my home."

Delicate gloved fingers press against his lips first. Juventus stares at him for a long moment. She doesn't need to tell him the time for talking is past. Her hands move to cup his cheeks, thumbs stroking over his stubble before he finds himself pushed back onto the grass. He goes willingly, happily. Appearances aside, she's always been stronger than him.

Gigi's hands rest on her hips as she deftly undoes his shirt, and when she leans down over him, her necklace — their crest, etched in gold, as it always should be — brushes against his chest. It almost burns, or maybe that's in Gigi's imagination— and he thinks of the first time they did this, at Vinovo— thinks of all the times since, after victories, after bitter losses— thinks he may not get this again— and then stops thinking altogether.

To know Paris is to be part of her collection, one bright figure that makes up a brighter whole. His curiosity gets the best of him after a few months and he has Marco translate when he tries to ask Thiago if it's different for him. Thiago only shrugs, tells him it's not the same as Milan, and Marco responds with what Gigi's sure is the French equivalent of _no shit_. That doesn't answer the question, really, but Gigi's learning not to expect much of that around here.

She's there with them when they win the league, revolver holstered for the first time all season. She thanks him for his service, kisses his cheek, moves on to the next.

If it felt more like a true service, perhaps he'd stay.

With a new contract signed, all that's left is to make it publicly official, something he tells Pavel he wants to do on his own. It feels right, he says, to return to their fans honestly, face them alone with both hands open. To be sure they'll take him back as he is.

Which is all true. But it also affords him a moment alone with Juventus after leaving her waiting patiently in the wings all day. 

They walk down the long hall together, the click of her boots and the scuff of his shoe a steady beat for the explanation he knows he doesn't need to give: "It's only one season."

"Oh, for now."

"I just have a few things to take care of—"

"I'm aware. Milan has been chewing my ear off, thank you for that."

"And I'll be here for the boys, but—"

"Good, they need you."

"—I won't be your captain."

Juventus scoffs and waves him off. "I have Giorgio now," she says. "He's funnier than you."

"That's a lie," Gigi gasps in mock offense.

"Smarter, too."

"Ah, that's true." She hums in happy agreement, but the few seconds of silence that stretch between them scratch underneath his skin. "But I'll hardly play," he goes on. "Only a few times. I won't be here to lead, or to guard you—"

The bull atop her mace catches him in the stomach, just enough to let out a winded little _oof_ and stop him in his tracks. Juventus steps in front of him, steps closer still, the whole line of her body suddenly pressed up against his — here, right before the double doors that will lead him out to the clamor of fans and media. "I know," she says, firm and deliberate. "I don't need that from you anymore, Gigi."

"Yes, well." Despite himself, he goes red at the tips of his ears. The words falter and die on his tongue. The way she's looking at him, he hasn't felt anything that intense since the morning he told her he'd never leave—

As ever, she reads it clearly across his face. "Exactly," she says, the smile she shone on him when he first walked into the building returning, spreading slow and warm across her sharp features. "I only need you to stay."

Gigi feels himself relax incrementally. That's all she's asking of him; that's all she's ever asked. 

The glass is mirrored. No one outside can see in.

He ducks his head to kiss her, soft as a promise, then bows it further so she can lift up on her toes and press her lips to his forehead.

Juventus steps back to inspect him. She nudges his hair back into place, straightens the collar of his shirt, rolls his sleeves up evenly before turning to face the door. Gigi takes his place by her side, her hand at his elbow and both their shoulders squared. When they step outside, they step together.

"Now," Juventus says, low and quiet against his ear, "Tell everyone you're home."

**Author's Note:**

> \- gigi's [goodbye presser](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1NHxWQHqF0) was loooooong but somewhere in there he did crack the "well on saturday i'm going to play a football match!" joke when asked about his future. troll til the end.
> 
> \- i've always really wanted to write calciopoli-era juve/gigi but it's hard... one day! but hopefully that lil bit suffices for now :3c
> 
> \- very cool that the [players' tribune](https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/gigi-buffon-letter-to-my-younger-self) where gigi talks about his depression and the role of football in his life dropped right as i was writing this. VERY FUN. but also, please read it. he's just... he's the best.
> 
> \- wrote one scene about psg and immediately went through an earthquake. Never Again.
> 
> \- [I COME BACK BECAUSE YOU CAN'T TURN DOWN AN INVITATION FROM A LADY, I COME BACK BECAUSE THIS IS MY HOME](https://www.instagram.com/p/Bzf2ofQhZ8n)
> 
> \- i may be mostly dead inside about football lately but i'll be emotional about [gigi's first day back at juve](https://andreeapirlo.tumblr.com/post/186056751909/welcome-back-gigi) til i die.
> 
> \- thank you for reading! ♥ you can find me on [tumblr](http://strikerbacks.tumblr.com) if you like to cry about gigi.


End file.
